Hollow

You do not know why

you thirst at the spring of life

yet are sated at the spring of death.

You learned all that you were meant to know,

and still you flee from what remains unknown.

Your knowledge torments you,

your ignorance deceives you.

For years, your existence has been an example of non-being,

and your non-being, an example of existence.

A vast black hole is devouring you from within,

slowly pulling you into its embrace,

pressing you close,

like a long-lost lover returning for a final meeting.

You belong neither to being

nor to nothingness.

You are everyone,

and at the same time, no one.

To fit into the mold of life,

you strike at your own fibers

with an axe forged from attachment.

O poplar tree,

your rough trunk speaks of being,

and your hollowed core speaks of nothingness—

of a city abandoned,

void of inhabitants.

Wherever I search for you,

I arrive at ruin.

You yourself are absent.

A storm is coming,

yet you remain unharmed.

Can being truly plunder anything from nothingness?

O poplar tree,

what did you witness

that caused you to vanish from within?

What did you endure

that made you pack your burdens

and set out toward nothingness?

O poplar,

life is difficult,

dying is more difficult still,

and more difficult than all—

is living.

Yet here I stand,

moving neither toward sunrise

nor toward sunset.

I am standing here,

beside you,

within your arms.